So this is no longer an academic discussion. This is a practical
discussion: if Canada gets PR, how would it work in Waterloo—London—Windsor? And
it should interest Liberals, who were shut out here in 2011.

Mixed Proportional

With the Mixed Proportional system, you elect more than one MP. You have competing representatives, likely
including someone you helped elect.

You have two votes. With one, you help elect a local MP as we do today. The
majority of MPs would still be local MPs.

With the other vote, you can vote for the party you want to see in
government, and for your favourite of your party’s regional candidates. So you
help elect a few regional MPs, topping-up the local results to make them match
the vote shares. Every vote counts: it’s proportional. You can vote for the
regional candidate you prefer: it’s personal. There are no closed lists. Voters
elect all the MPs.

Competing MPs

You can
choose to go to your local MP for service or representation, or you can go to one of your regional MPsfrom a “top-up region” based in your area.

Accountable MPs

This open list method was recommended both by our Law Commission and by the Jenkins Commission in the UK. Jenkins’ colourful explanation accurately predicted why closed lists would be rejected in Canada: additional members
locally anchored are “more easily assimilable into the political culture and
indeed the Parliamentary system than would be a flock of unattached birds
clouding the sky and wheeling under central party directions.” Our own Law Commission said “allowing voters to choose a
candidate from the list provides voters with the ability to select a specific
individual and hold them accountable for their actions should they be
elected."

Every vote counts. Each province still has the
same number of MPs it has today. No constitutional amendment is needed. Fair Vote Canada
says “We must give rural and urban voters
in every province, territory and regional community effective votes and fair
representation in both government and opposition.”

What would regional MPs do?

How would regional MPs operate? The regional MPs would cover several
ridings each. Just the way it’s done in Scotland. They could have several offices,
just as Dave MacKenzie has offices inWoodstock
and Tillsonburg.

This simulation is only if people voted as they did on May 2,
2011. When every vote counts, turnout will likely be at
least 6% higher, and no one will have to cast a “strategic vote.” We would have had different candidates - more women, and more
diversity of all kinds. We could even have different parties. Who can say what would be the result of real democratic elections?

Meanwhile, I’ve done simulations on the votes cast in 2011.

One region

On the votes cast in 2011, the
winner-take-all results in Southwestern Ontario on the new 2015
boundaries would be 13 Conservative MPs, three New Democrats, and no Liberals.
Yet those voters cast only 47% of their votes for Conservatives, 29% NDP, 20%
Liberals, and 3.4% Green. If every vote counted equally, Conservative voters
would elect eight MPs, New Democrat voters five MPs, and Liberal voters three. (See technical note as to how Green voters
come extremely close to electing an MP.)

Since I’m projecting from the 2011 votes, I’ll start with the 2011
candidates. Suppose the nine local MPs were (depending on local nominations in larger ridings) Conservatives Gary Goodyear in Cambridge, London’s Ed Holder, Jeff
Watson in Essex County, Woodstock’s Dave MacKenzie, Kitchener’s Stephen Woodworth, Joe Preston in St.
Thomas, and Chatham’s Dave Van Kesteren; and New Democrats Irene Mathyssen and Joe
Comartin. In that case, Liberal voters would have elected three regional MPs
from across the region, New Democrat voters would also have elected three, and
Conservative voters one.

These smaller regions are intended to be “moderately” proportional, less
likely to elect MPs from smaller parties like the Greens. But in return, they
provide better geographic representation, and more accountable regional MPs.

Waterloo—Oxford

On the votes cast in 2011, the
winner-take-all results in this region on the 2015 boundaries would be six
Conservative MPs and no others. Yet those voters cast only 49.5% of their votes
for Conservatives, 23% for Liberals, 22% for New Democrats, and 4% for Greens.
If every vote counted equally, Conservative voters would elect three MPs, Liberal
voters two, and New Democrat voters one.

On the votes cast in 2011, the
winner-take-all results in London—Windsor on the 2015 boundaries would
be seven Conservative MPs, three New Democrat MPs, and no Liberals. Yet those
voters cast 45% of their votes for Conservatives, 34% for New Democrats, 17%
for Liberals, and 3% for Greens. If every vote counted equally, Conservative
voters would elect five MPs, New Democrat voters still three, and Liberal
voters two.

Suppose the six local MPs were (depending on local nominations in larger ridings) Conservatives Ed Holder in London, Jeff Watson in Essex County, Joe
Preston in St. Thomas, and Chatham’s Dave Van Kesteren; and New Democrats Irene
Mathyssen and Joe Comartin. In that case, Liberal voters would elect two
regional MPs, New Democrats one, and Conservatives one. The regional MPs for each party would be the party’s regional
candidates who ended up with the most support across the region. Liberal
voters might have elected London’s Glen Pearson (17,803) and Chatham-Kent’s Gayle
Stucke (7,264) or London’s Doug Ferguson (16,652) or Essex County’s Nelson
Santos (7,465). NDP voters might have elected Windsor’s Brian Masse (21,592) or Sarnia’s Brian White (14,856),
or London’s Peter Ferguson (16,109), or Fred Sinclair in St. Thomas (12,439). Conservative
voters might have elected London’s Susan
Truppe (19,468) or Windsor’s Denise Ghanam (14,945).

Two models: summary

By using two regions, both
regions are sure of keeping all six or ten MPs. On the one-region model, in theory all seven regional MPs might
have been from one half of Southwestern Ontario. And with only six or ten MPs per region, the proportionality is more
moderate.

Also, by a fluke of rounding differences, the two-region model costs NDP
voters an MP, while the Liberals gain one. One nice feature of a system with 27
regions is that these rounding differences even themselves out across Canada.

Regional candidates

How would party members nominate and rank a group of regional
candidates? It could be done on-line, and with live conventions. Likely party
members in each region would decide to nominate the same candidates nominated
in the local ridings, and some additional regional candidates. (In Nova Scotia in 2011, in all 11 ridings
the Liberals nominated only men. Additional regional candidates would surely
have included some women. Since polls show 90% of Canadians want to see more
women elected, we’ll elect women when given the chance.)

But voters would have the final say, since they can vote for their
party’s regional candidate they prefer.

More choice

For local MP, you can vote for the candidate you like best without
hurting your party, since the party make-up of parliament is set by the party
votes. In New Zealand, 35% of voters split their votes that way.

Canada-wide consequences.

With the new 30 MPs, on the 2011 votes
transposed by Elections Canada onto the new boundaries, the winner-take-all
results for the 338 MPs would be 188 Conservative, 109 NDP, 36 Liberal, 4 Bloc,
and 1 Green.

When every vote counts, the result is: 140
Conservatives, 104 NDP, 64 Liberals, 19 Bloc, and 11 Green, using full
proportionality on province-wide totals.

With these two mixed models, the projected results are 140
Conservatives, 106 or 108 NDP, 63 or 67 Liberals, 15 or 18 Bloc, and 8 or 11
Greens. Close to perfect proportionality, while keeping all MPs accountable to
real local and regional communities.

Canadian diversity

As Stéphane Dion says "I no longer want a voting system
that gives the impression that certain parties have given up on Quebec, or on
the West. On the contrary, the whole spectrum of parties, from Greens to
Conservatives, must embrace all the regions of Canada. In each region, they
must covet and be able to obtain seats proportionate to their actual support.
This is the main reason why I recommend replacing our voting system."

This is not a partisan scheme. Unrepresented
Conservative voters would elect eight more Quebec MPs than in 2011, one more in
Newfoundland, one more in PEI, one more in Northern Ontario, and one more on
Vancouver Island.

Of course, proportional representation would mean a lot for Canada. We
would not likely have a one party government’s Prime Minister holding all the
power. (The last Prime Minister to get more than 50% of the votes was Brian
Mulroney in 1984.) Parliament would reflect the diverse voters of every
province.

An exciting prospect: voters have new power to elect who they
like. New voices from new forces in Parliament. No party rolls the dice and
wins an artificial majority. Cooperation will have a higher value than
vitriolic rhetoric. Instead of having only a local MP -- whom you quite likely
didn’t vote for -- you can also go to one of your diverse regional MPs, all of
whom had to face the voters. Governments will have to listen to MPs, and MPs
will have to really listen to the people. MPs can begin to act as the public
servants they are. And all party caucuses will be more diverse.

With this kind of power-sharing, Canada would
look quite different.

If we had a Proportional Representation voting system, here are only a few of
the things Canadians could have accomplished over the past twenty years:Ø Engaged and motivated votersØ A reinvigorated democratic systemØ More women MPs and a fair mix of party representation

Our electoral system is broken and people know it:Ø Disengaged citizens are ignoring their right to voteØ A dysfunctional conflict-oriented political process Ø Majority governments with minority voting results

Poll results on proportional
representation

Environics asked in 2013 “Some people favor bringing in a form of proportional
representation. This means that the total number of seats held by each party in
Parliament would be roughly equivalent to their percentage of the national
popular vote. Would you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose, or
strongly oppose moving towards a system of proportional representation in
Canadian elections?”

Interviewing for this Environics National Telephone Survey was conducted between
March 18th – 24th, 2013, among a national random sample of 1,004 adults. The
margin of error for a sample of this size is +/- 3.1%, 19 times out of 20.
Result: support 70%, oppose 18%, depends 6%, don’t know 6%.

The Environics poll showed 93% of Green voters support proportional
representation while 4% oppose; 82% of NDP voters support it while 11% oppose;
77% of Liberal voters support it while 15% oppose; 62% of Conservative
supporters support it while 28% oppose; and 55% of voters undecided as to party
support PR while 19% oppose and 27% said “don’t know” or “depends.”

The rounding method used in the
simulation is highest remainder, for the same reason the Ontario Citizens
Assembly chose it: it's the simplest. Germany used to use this too, on the
premise that it offset the risk to proportionality of their 5% threshold.
Similarly it offsets smaller region sizes.

Green voters come extremely close to
electing an MP in Southwestern Ontario.Here’s how the calculation
of numbers of MPs turns out: Conservatives 7.5532, NDP 4.74, Liberals 3.15,
Greens 0.5527. After the first 14 seats are calculated, the 15th goes to the
“highest remainder,” the NDP, and the 16th then follows the “highest remainder”
principle and goes to the Conservatives. If discouraged Green voters in these 16 ridings had cast only another 18
Green votes, they would have elected an MP such as Waterloo’s Cathy MacLellan (who
got 3,158 votes) or
London’s Mary Ann Hodge (2,177), taking a seat from the Conservatives.
But with the two-region model, it would have taken another 6,410 Green votes to
take a regional seat in Waterloo—Oxford from the Liberals, and another 9,340
Green votes to take a regional seat in London—Windsor from the Conservatives.

Would second preferences,
used in the Jenkins-inspired model, have changed any results? Sometimes, using
the EKOS poll taken April 28-30, 2011. But not in Southwestern
Ontario.

About Me

Although I am a member of Fair Vote Canada's Council at the federal level, the views expressed on this blog are my own.
I have been a lawyer since 1971, an elected school trustee from 1982 to 1994, past chair of the Board of the Northumberland Community Legal Centre, and so on.